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Coyne: Scotland’s referendum was a fundamentally undemocratic process

The Saltire, the flag of Scotland flies above the Union flag, at a site on the banks of the River Sark in Gretna in Scotland, which is thought to be the historic border between Scotland and England, taken on Aug. 17, 2014. ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/FILES Photo: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images/Files

In the wake of the Scottish referendum, observers in this country have been hailing it as an exemplary exercise in democracy. And in some formalistic senses this is true: There seems to have been very little cheating, turnout was massive, and so on. But before we hold up the Scottish process as an example for Canada to follow, let’s pause and take a closer look.

Even to talk of holding another referendum in Canada, first, suggests a strange definition of democracy is at work, the same that has held us in its sway since the first, in which a yes, however tentative, is the final word, but a no, however many times it is repeated, only means a la prochaine — or, as Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader put it, “at this stage.” (To be fair, I don’t believe a yes would be final, either. I think it would only mark the start of the real referendum, the continuing battle for public opinion through the months of chaos that would follow. So the No side were very likely being as deceitful as the Yes in claiming that a yes was “forever.” At least I hope they were.)

Second, the question, much lauded though it was here for its clarity — “Should Scotland be an independent country?” — only appears so in light of the hilariously complex and misleading questions employed in our own triumphs of democracy. Any expert in public opinion polling could tell you it’s a slanted question: It plainly invites a yes. A fair question would present the two options, equally: Should Scotland become an independent country, or should it remain a part of the United Kingdom?

Third, merely because the British prime minister was foolish enough to agree to 50 per cent plus one of the vote as sufficient mandate to begin negotiations on the breakup of the kingdom — assuming he was being sincere, and assuming the negotiations did not collapse and assuming a whole lot else that would probably not be the case — it does not follow that Canada is now obliged to accept that as a precedent.

The arguments that led the Supreme Court to require a clear majority as one of the conditions, alongside a clear question, of the (entirely made up) duty to negotiate on the part of the rest of Canada (whoever that is, constitutionally), still hold. The Clarity Act, which slyly turned this on its head — from requiring negotiations in the event of a clear majority, to banning negotiations without it — is still the law of the land. And, as is increasingly widely acknowledged in Quebec, such a narrow and divisive majority could not possibly be sufficient to launch the province on such a perilous adventure. (Opinion polls in the province point to 60 per cent as a bare minimum, with a substantial number preferring 75 per cent.)

But — point four — even a clearer question, and even with a clear majority, it still wouldn’t alter the fundamentally undemocratic premise of the enterprise: namely, that the fate of the whole country may be decided by the vote of a small minority. Had the Yes carried the day in Scotland, it would have been with the support of perhaps 1.8 million out of the United Kingdom’s 64 million citizens. The rest were forced to watch, helplessly, as their own futures hung in the balance.

We have all been seduced by the formalities — the holding of a vote, with ballot boxes and scrutineers and the rest — into thinking these affairs are actually based on some sort of democratic principle. But just because you hold a vote on something doesn’t make it democratic, not in any legitimate sense. For example, you can’t vote to help yourself to something that isn’t yours, and you can’t vote to decide the fates of others, not party to the vote.

Yet that is precisely what separatists in Canada and the U.K. have attempted to maintain: that they could vote, not to “leave” the country, as it is sometimes put, but to take a part of the country with them, and that the rest of the country, including the vast majority of its citizens, had no choice but to accept whatever the minority decreed. This may be called many things, but democratic isn’t one of them. If it’s democracy we’re interested in, then any decision to break up the country should be for all of the country to vote on, not just a part of it.

British Prime Minister David Cameron walks out of his official residence at 10 Downing Street in central London, to make a statement about Scotland’s referendum results on Sept. 19, 2014. Scotland voted no for independence in a historic vote. (Lefteris Pitarakis/The Associated Press)

But of course the Scots voted No in the end, and so instead of negotiating the unmaking of the United Kingdom, the Brits are merely embarked on negotiating its remaking. And here we come to point five on our list. For the underlying premise here, on which the SNP is still insisting, is that powers could be downloaded en masse to Scotland, and to Scotland alone, without altering any of the U.K.’s other constitutional arrangements. Sound familiar? In Canada, we would call this asymmetric federalism or special status, the traditional favourite of those who believe in easy answers to complex questions.

Only it is very quickly running into much the same objection that has always stood in the way of its implementation here: namely, that it would leave MPs from Scotland in a position to make laws for the rest of the country, while largely precluding MPs from the rest of the country from making laws for Scotland. So Scottish MPs could vote to raise taxes in England for the Scottish Parliament to spend. There are ways to get around this — devolution of English-only matters, either to a new English parliament, or to city councils — but the most likely fix would simply be to exclude Scottish MPs from voting on English-only matters.

I wonder how many Scots had bargained on this. If the price of devolution is to cut the Scots out of any effective role in governing the rest of the U.K., we may yet see demands for another referendum, only of a very different kind.

A National Post original, Andrew Coyne's journalism career has also included positions with Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and the Southam newspaper chain. In addition, he has contributed to a wide range... read more of other publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Time and Saturday Night. Coyne is also a long-time member of the CBC’s popular At Issue panel on The National.View author's profile